


Vikings à Paris (2015)

by swimmingfox



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vikings, Gen, Macarons, Nonsense, Paris - Freeform, Pipe dream, Rollo goes clubbing, Soooo alternate universe, Trifle, Would have made Season 3 more awesome, probably, selfie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 00:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4766876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimmingfox/pseuds/swimmingfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ragnar and the Vikings go to Paris. Except that it is Paris, 2015. S'ensuit de l'hilarité.</p><p>ONE-SHOT, because really, ça suffit. Please forgive the obviously ludicrous logistical oversights.</p><p>NB Using the same style as my other Vikings/GoT fics - but with helpful headings!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vikings à Paris (2015)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jillypups](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jillypups/gifts).



> Because Jillypups was sick and I was too (and high on too many vitamins).

**Ragnar**

Ragnar knows of the glory of Paris. He had made Athelstan speak of it many times in Kattegat, and together they would kneel on the sand, digging out a long line for the river they called Seine, letting the seawater run along it to the mounds and hills they had made. He had made Athelstan tell him, again and again, of the great towers and houses they had, of the people, how they dressed and spoke. He had made him speak Frankish words, so that he might be able to talk a little with the emperor there. Before he took the city, and the emperor’s head, if he had to.

But he had not been ready for what he sees now. As they sail up the great wide river in their longships, he can only stare at the land. There are houses of many odd shapes, all larger than he had dreamt of. Many stars seem to have fallen onto them. They glitter like the sun on water.

‘Brother.’ Rollo comes and stands next to him. ‘What is this place?’

Ragnar calls Athelstan over to him. ‘Athelstan. This is what you saw before? When you were a priest?’

His friend gazes at the city, with a small frown. ‘It is not as I remember it, it is true.’ He glances down at the map he drew, and Lagertha comes and looks over his shoulder. ‘But this is the Seine, I am sure of it.’

‘Well, perhaps they have grown very rich in these last years,’ says Lagertha. 

It is not what Ragnar had expected. They do not have enough men, enough weapons, for this. There must be many thousands of people here. Thousands of warriors. He begins to think that he should not have brought his wife, who stands tall and queen-like, with Siggy next to her.

Yet it is odd. People stand and stare a little as they sail upriver. But no one draws a sword. Instead, they have small weapons that they lift in front of their faces. Everyone on his ship bends down, brings up their shields, but nothing hits them. 

A low sigh of wonder from his brother. ‘Even Valhalla does not have that,’ says Rollo, pointing. 

Ragnar turns. Ahead is a great tower, taller than Yggdrasil, touching the sky. Their church.

Floki joins them. ‘The gods have decided to show us a new realm,’ he says, in a voice that uncurls like a flower in summer, before he suddenly ducks again.

This time, it is a sound above them. Everyone lifts their bows. A great bird is in the sky, very high up, and it roars. A jötunn’s bird. Their arrows follow it, bows strung tight. No one looses.

Floki watches it. ‘Ships in the sky,’ he says in a whisper, and follows its path with his fingers.

‘I am so excited,’ says Bjørn’s shieldmaiden. ‘Paris, Bjørn. There will be a great battle and I will fight.’

‘Only if I allow it,’ says Bjørn to Thorunn, and she scowls at him before they kiss.

Athelstan shouts to someone who holds their little weapon up. ‘Paris?’ They shout back the same word and hold their thumbs up apart from the rest of their fists. They are not threatened at all. 

Athelstan turns to Ragnar, shrugging. ‘It is Paris.’

**Rollo**

You docked by a low wall next to a bridge. People had come to watch. Their clothes were dyed in many colours, and some shone oddly. Some women had raised parts on their shoes, thin as bone. No one seemed frightened – they pointed and some clapped. A welcome, as one Viking clan might to another. As if there been word of your coming, and they were not happy with how they were ruled.

You stood, holding your axe, glancing around, looking for arrowmen in the windows. ‘Perhaps we will not need to fight, brother,’ you said.

Ragnar looked watchful, turning around in a slow circle, eyes following the highest edges of the great houses around you.

Suddenly, a woman came forward with her little weapon in her hand. You raised your axe, ready to cut her arm off. There was a great cry around you from the cityfolk, and she took her arm away with a little gasp. All Northmen and women around you lifted their weapons, and all the cityfolk lifted theirs. Perhaps the battle would start now. 

There was a loud sound, like a giant goose. On the bridge, a box with people inside went past, very fast. A cart, made of a metal. The people were waving and laughing. 

‘A path-ship,’ said Floki, under his breath. 

The people of the city standing around you laughed too, and waved and smiled at each other, and at you all. 

You lowered your weapons. Who were these odd, laughing people? What realm had you come into?

‘I cannot understand it,’ said Athelstan to Ragnar, moving away from a small band of people. ‘They do not speak Frankish, though their tongue is much like it.’

The woman, who was unlike any you had ever seen, was still looking at you. A smile like she wanted to have sex with you.

Perhaps it was not a weapon, but a gift that she had held out before. You put your hand out, and she gave it to you. A small, hard box. You tried to open it, and she said something that sounded like the English word for _no_. She came over, took it out of your hand, and stood very close to you, her arm against your shoulder. She held the box in front of you both, smiling, and you thought _this is all a trap_ , and thought about killing her again, quickly in the back maybe, when she brought the box forward and showed you it.

A small painting, of a man and this woman. The man was her husband perhaps. And then you looked more closely, and your heart dropped to your toes. You knew, from looking in the rivers, from looking in dirty glass, that it was you.

***

 **Lagertha**

It is a very beautiful city. Ragnar seems to look at it only for weapons and land, but my breath is wire-trapped by its houses and its people, and the roads that have trees planted wide apart. The houses are made of many lines and shapes, and all are tall. Many rich people must live here, although they do not all wear the great jewels that they must all have. Perhaps they keep them safe in these great houses made of stone and metal.

We walk among them, our hands close to our weapons, but no one seems to want to hurt us. It is as if we are little wooden toys that children play with – they look at us in happiness and talk to each other, and hold their small things that are not weapons to their faces. 

Ragnar has said we will go to the greatest house, and seek the emperor. Athelstan spoke Frankish to a man dressed in long robes, not unlike the monk-cloak he wore once, and the priest pointed us to a small island. We cross a bridge. Floki keeps stopping to look at the small iron one-person carts on the paths, and the many large metal carts, which smell of darkness and dust and make much noise. His eyes are wider than I have ever seen them.

The great church is tall and fine. The stone has been carved by many monks who must all draw as well as Athelstan. There is a metal tower, as high as the highest trees on our mountains. 

We are all quiet when we step inside. It is like nothing else we have ever seen. A temple that is the finest jewel, with a summer sky-blue roof, and wooden seats, and red and gold and everything so finely-carved that my mouth opens. I stand with Aslaug and Siggy, our chins upwards.

Thorunn makes a small howling noise, and looks up as it echoes around. Bjørn makes another, and they both grin at each other.

Athelstan is gazing at their god-on-the-cross, who is in a part of the church that is like another temple. The sun makes everything bold. ‘Is this what you saw before, Athelstan?’ I say. ‘When you were last here?’

‘No,’ he says, and his voice is very quiet. ‘I did not see this.’

There is a loud clatter and we look round. Floki is tapping his axe against a coffin, trying to dig out the face of a man carved in stone. A woman runs up to him, her voice breaking up into pieces in the great stone hall, and he hisses at her. She runs away and he giggles, shrugging his shoulders at Ragnar.

Ragnar’s eyes are large as they stare at the glass window, full of all the world’s colours. 

‘They love their god,’ I say, staring with him. There are rainbows and realms and dreams in this window.

‘They do,’ he says. ‘But the emperor is not here.’ He breathes out, quickly and loudly, and looks around. ‘And where is my brother?’

***

**Rollo**

Many people had wanted to give you their gifts, their boxes with the little paintings of you and them. Not just girls, but men, children. It was as if they all wanted you for their husband, or their friend, or their god. You could not understand what trickery made these, but if Loki could turn into an eagle, or Odin summon dead horses, then perhaps this was a place where the gods were among you. 

Eventually you grew tired of the boxes and sat by the river, staring into the water. You did not know where the others had gone. But there seemed to be no battle here. You would wait for Ragnar to find the emperor and talk to him. He would find you when you were needed.

The cityfolk were very friendly here. Many people were drinking ale out of cups made of glass, and a young man, perhaps a warrior, gave one to you. 

‘Skål,’ you said, and he said a different word. ‘Saluté,’ you said. He smiled and said the word that you were sure must mean _yes_ , and you said it back, and drank your ale very quickly. You had learnt two words just like that. Who needed the priest to teach you.

Ale turned into more ale and many people trying to talk to you, and you learning some more words. The words for _ale_ and _river_ and _girl_ and _hair_. This last girl was very pretty, younger than you, a strong face and dark hair. She wore strange coverings over her eyes that meant you could not see them and what colour they were. She had given you a small white thing between her fingers, like a pipe but only made of parchment. Small grasses inside. It filled your chest with smoke and your head with thoughts. You looked around for more to learn and pointed upwards, to the great temple tower that you could just see above the other tall houses.

The girl said a word.

‘Tordifel?’ you said, and she said it again and nodded.

You looked at this girl in her tight-fitting breeches and small, coloured tunic, wondering how to ask her what the word was for sex. Perhaps you should just take her, here by the river. She did not look like she would mind. But then another man came up and spoke to her very quickly, and looked at you angrily.

You stood up, and put your hand on your axe-shaft, made a fierce face. You would fight for her, if she willed it.

But she laughed and kissed him on the cheek and waved at you and was gone. 

No sex. Whatever their word was. You looked at the tip of the tower again, smoking your parchment pipe. Fine. You would do something else instead.

A quick piss. You stood up, walked under the bridge a little, loosed your breeches and pissed into the river. A man came up, waving his hands. ‘I am trying to piss,’ you said. He said more words that were not _girl_ or _river_ or _hair_. ‘I cannot piss if you are shouting at me.’ More words, louder now. You grabbed the man by the front part of his short cloak and head-butted him, throwing him into the river, and carried on pissing.

***

**Ragnar**

Ragnar does not like this place. The sounds are so loud. Everything feels like an enemy – the carts on the road, which do not stop, the little one-person carts, the coloured lights, the posts and pictures and paintings. 

No one else amongst them seems to mind. They are all excited and do not keep their hands near their weapons. Ragnar tries to shake off his worry. The gods are setting him a challenge and he must rise to it. He must find the emperor and talk about farms. Though he could not really see where they might farm near this city. There were no trees. No animals, apart from dogs too tiny to even hunt fleas.

There is a gasp from Floki. He looks down at steps that go underground, perhaps to a cave. ‘I want to go down there,’ he says. ‘Listen.’ His badger-black eyes are wide as he tips his head, and there is a strange rumble under the earth. ‘Perhaps Light Elves or dwarves are there.’

‘No, Floki,’ says Ragnar. ‘We must stay together.’ Though Bjørn and Thorunn seem to no longer be with them, he thinks, looking around.

Floki dashes down the steps and after a moment comes back up again. ‘I will find you later,’ he says and runs back down into the cave.

The rest of them walk slowly up a great hill. There is another temple at the top, and there, perhaps, will be someone for him to talk to, make agreements with. The roads are wider here, and the houses not all so high. He feels he can breathe a little easier. 

The temple has many people on its steps. It has pale curves like a beautiful pregnant woman, like Aslaug, who many people look at, in her long blue cloak. Inside, a calm church, though not as jewelled as the last. ‘Your god is very great here, Athelstan,’ Ragnar says, nudging him, and his friend nods.

But there is no emperor. They walk back down the hill, and Ragnar wonders what to do. 

‘Look,’ says Torstein, pointing.

It is an odd house, with a four-pointed star on the front. Many blood-coloured lights and paintings of women, dancing, also in blood-colours.

‘It is a little like the mill near us in England,’ says Athelstan. ‘Perhaps they bake bread here.’

Torstein goes inside and when he comes out, his face is alive and as happy as when he has beaten Floki at hnefatafl. ‘They do not bake bread here,’ he says. ‘You should come inside, Ragnar.’

Ragnar glances round to see what Aslaug thinks. Except that Aslaug is not there. And nor is Lagertha, or Siggy. He sighs.

***

**Lagertha**

‘The man-slaves are very polite here,’ says Aslaug. 

It is true. We sit in a small feast-place and there are man-slaves serving us, not girls. They are dressed in very tight tunics and tight black breeches.

‘They are also all very handsome,’ says Siggy, leaning over, her voice low, the line of her dress at her breast a little lower still. She puts her hand on the arm of one of them and points to the cups of dark barley-tea on the next table with a very slow, honey-coloured smile.

‘What do you think of the dresses that the women wear in this city?’ says Aslaug. 

‘Some of them are very short,’ says Siggy. ‘I would never wear anything that did not fall to the ankle.’

‘It is true that they are short,’ says Aslaug, thinking. ‘But I think we would all wear them well.’

It is a little dull to hear them speak of it, but I let them speak on. 

The man-slaves bring us small dishes with tiny cakes on them, in wildflower-colours. We look at the slave, and he says some words in his pretty tongue and points to a man in the corner, who is old and very rich-looking. He nods and smiles, and Siggy smiles for all three of us.

The cakes are the sweetest things that any of us have ever eaten. They are like honey upon honey, but light and crunchy and we all sit back and make noises that we would make if we were lying with men. I think I have gone to Folkvangr. There are small cups of hot, black water that is more bitter than any barley-drink, and makes me feel very awake.

‘I should like to see the markets,’ says Aslaug. ‘I want to see what fine fruits and cakes we might be able to get.’

‘I think I might stay and talk to that man,’ says Siggy, blinking very slowly at the one who has bought us the sweet cakes.

I stand. ‘I will leave you to it.’ They look up and I lift my eyebrows. ‘As if all women want to do is look at weaving-looms and jewels and fruit cakes and rich men.'

***

**Rollo**

It seemed much taller, now that you were here at its foot. And what was odd was that it was no house, and there were no walls. Instead it seemed to be a tower that many people were climbing. It must have been like Uppsala – to reach it you had to strain your muscles, work hard to reach the top and speak to your gods. You smoked the last of your parchment-pipe, and dropped it on the ground.

At the gate there were two men saying something to you. The words you had learnt were not enough. You felt for your coin-purse, gave it to one of the men and walked past, ignoring their other words. A hand on your shoulder. 'Non,' you said, and pushed him and brought your axe out, and put it in his arm. He fell to the floor as you went to the steps.

Many people climbed. Children, and men and women. Some had been to many feasts, it seemed, and still they climbed. You needed to eat something soon. Your belly was like this empty iron cage you were walking up.

But you kept going. Once you had started, you knew you must finish. Thor was up there. Freyr. You kept walking up, higher, higher into the clouds, watching your feet on the twisted metal that was like the metal on the hilts of the finest swords, and when you finally reached it, you felt that you were a god yourself. It was Yggdrasil.

‘I thought I hung on that windy Tree,’ you said, loudly, as the wind lifted your hair a little. ‘Nine whole days and nights, stabbed with a spear, offered to Odin, myself to mine own self given.’ You put your arms outwards, like wings, and imagined yourself upside down. ‘High on that Tree of which none hath heard from what roots it rises to heaven.’ 

You tipped your chin up, and people around you cheered. You let them use their boxes on you.

***

**Ragnar**

‘Father. We have been looking for you.’

Bjørn and Thorunn are behind him. They are wearing strange scarves around their necks. 

Ragnar feels a spreading relief that his son, at least, is here, when he seems to have lost everyone else. ‘Bjørn, where have you been?’

‘We have been on a great road named Oberkampf. It is full of people like us. They have our hair and they have many tattoos. I think this is where we can make allies.’

Ragnar follows, and the road grows busier. He does not like it, and keeps his hand over his axe handle.

When they reach the middle of the road and all the houses, Bjørn and Thorunn turn around. Someone is waving at Thorunn, a girl with metal in her face, and very small clothes with many holes in them. ‘That is the girl I was talking to before,’ she says. ‘I think there was a feast that they wanted us to go to.’ She turns to Ragnar. ‘There is lots of food, good food. Some of it is from the East.’

‘I do not think I fit in here,’ says Ragnar. ‘There are only young people.’

‘But your beard, Father. It’s longer than anyone’s. And no one has the likes of your skull-tattoos.’ 

‘No. I need to find Athelstan. Or Lagertha.’ He wanders back the way he came.

***

**Lagertha**

It is a house that seems to have fallen into the ground. Just one corner of it sticks up. It is as if a jötunn has picked it up and thrown it back down again. It is made up of many windows and no walls. No one seems to be worried or frightened but instead go inside, holding small bits of parchment. One has fallen to the floor and I pick it up. Writing, like the English make, very neat. A man speaks to me and holds his hand out, and I give it to him. But instead of drawing the weapon he has, he smiles and puts his arm out, and I follow the other people into the great house.

It is a house with many pictures, greater than I have ever seen in any English church. This is what it must be. A temple to their many gods.

Inside, it is greater than anything I could ever have dreamt of. Greater than Uppsala, greater than Folkvangr. The roof is glass, a roof for the richest people. It must be the emperor's temple.

I walk slowly through the great temple, and do not mind that people stare a little. There are many things here, stone and paintings and drawings that I am sure Athelstan would want to see. His god is everywhere. But other gods, too, and animals and strange colours. 

Many people stand around a stone woman, who is as pale as bone. She has no tunic, her breasts bare, as if at the end of a feast. She has no arms – the real woman’s must have been cut off in battle. She looks to be very strong. Frejya, I think, and watch the people say their prayers to her and hold their little boxes high. Perhaps they are prayer-sticks.

A crowd also stands around one drawing, made with many colours. A dark-haired woman is on it. She has a very calm face, and eyes that look like she is thinking of sleeping. She holds her hands on her lap, and seems to know much. Frigg, I think. No offerings are made to this likeness of the goddess, but people are very quiet and she seems to be very important to them, as they lift their prayer-sticks to her. I walk close to it, and step over the red-dyed rope. I pick it off the wall and there is a high loud noise, like many birds in my head, like a longhouse full of babies screaming, and two men are running at me. I draw my sword, shout at them, and run.

***

**Ragnar**

‘Athelstan.’ His friend looks up. ‘Who are these women?’ 

Ragnar has finally found him in a little feast-house south of the river that has candles on tables outside in the street. Athelstan sits at a table with two very beautiful women on either side of him. One has long hair the colour of dark wine, and the other has very short hair, shaved like Thorunn’s. Ragnar gives them his best smiles that mean sex, one each.

Athelstan is being fed something on a tiny metal fork. It looks soft and dripping, like the inside of a woman during summer nights. ‘This is Julienne,’ he says, moving his hand, and bites off the strange food on the fork. ‘And this is Cerise.’

‘Perhaps there is enough food for two,’ Ragnar says, beginning to sit down. The women look up, blinking. 

Athelstan chews, swallows, puts on his thinking-face. ‘I do not think so,’ he says, and gives a simple, clear-eyed smile.

Ragnar glares at him. The one who is called Cerise picks up a tiny green fruit and puts it in Athelstan’s mouth. 

‘Then I will go and find other company,’ says Ragnar, his eyes wide. Athelstan nods and does not look guilty.

***

**Rollo**

You were being pulled along a small street, and you did not even mind. 

After you had come back down their great Yggdrasil-temple, you had needed to eat. You had told some more of Odin’s words in the street and people had given you coins, and you had bought roast pig off a man in the street, although he did not seem to like it when you tried to take the whole thing. But you had only chopped one finger off him and stumbled away.

After the pig you had eaten a strange cold thing in an upside-down pie, which made your head and your teeth hurt, but it tasted sweeter than honey and you had two more. 

There was a girl, a _fille_ with dark _cheveux_ and a small coloured tunic and gold strings in her hair, but you could not quite remember if it was the one from the river or not. And more girls, and boys too, and you went with them all, with their little boxes and their glasscups of ale and more pipes, and sat on some grass and listened to them talk, their voices like bubbles in a river. In a _fleuve_.

After a while you were pulled up again, and went down a long street full of stars and candles. You had smoked so much of the grassherb in parchment that they could have taken you anywhere. Everyone was your friend in Paris. And to think that you had been worried about coming.

It was a great, dark palace. They must have already feasted. Everyone was drinking and laughing and the northern lights were inside, under this roof. And other stars and planets. But what struck you most was the sound – a sound like a battle of jötunns and the Aesir. A sound like realms, splitting apart. 

And at first you thought that people were screaming in terror and then you saw that they were not. That they were laughing, shouting, and dancing. The sound was drums, drums that must be being played by thousands of people on the other side of the wall. Perhaps an even greater feast was happening out there. 

Before you could find out, the girl was tugging at your hand. Giving you a little blue drink, which tasted of apples and the sea and magic. And a tiny little round thing, white, like a cube of snow. She had one too, and put it on her tongue, and you let her put the other one on your tongue. You followed her, into the middle of the great hall, and onto a step. 

Around you, people cheered up at you, a great wave of people with their feast-drinks in the air, dancing. That was it. You had become a king. A king of Paris. 

You danced.

***

**Ragnar**

There is so much noise. So many weapons, so small they cannot always be seen. Pointed at them.

Where are the animals? Where are the gods? There are no gods here. Or they are all gods.

Lagertha is running towards him. There are two men running after her, and they carry larger weapons. ‘We need to go, Ragnar.’

Yes. Yes, that was it. They all needed to leave, very quickly. This place was far more dangerous than they could have ever imagined.

He grabs her hand, and wonders where his wife is. Where his son is. 

Floki is running up the steps from one of the underground caves, and behind him, there is the sound of screaming, and smoke. 

‘Floki! What have you done?’ says Ragnar, as he joins them, and they push through the people, and the path-ships.

‘I only wanted to see how the underground ship was sailed,’ says Floki, in a breathless voice.

***

**Rollo**

‘Rollo.’

Torstein was there, but you could hardly hear him over the battle-sounds. ‘Torstein,’ you shouted, holding onto his shoulders. ‘This is Valhalla.’

‘Ragnar says we must leave,’ he shouted in your ear. 

Of course. So like your brother. You were having a good time, and you were being made a king. 

Amongst the feast-makers, there were some men moving towards you too, men who looked like enemies, with little flat helmets and weapons. Perhaps you should go, after all.

***

**Ragnar**

Bjørn and Thorunn hold an odd material, like hard water, over one arm each. They look at their tattoos, which they say were drawn with a needle, not tapped with wood. It is the city’s great tower, going up their arms, and some words underneath. They probably do not even know what they say.

Ragnar watches the city flow past him, and thinks of Kattegat. Of his little sons, his goats, his throne. It will be better there.

Floki is making strange noises and moving his hands together in different ways, floating through the air, running along the side of the boat. ‘As soon as we return to Kattegat, I will make an underground ship,’ he says to Torstein. ‘And a ship in the sky. I will be the greatest sky-ship builder the world has ever known.’

Aslaug is holding small sacks in her hands, and showing Siggy the cloths and food she has bought. Lagertha holds the painting of the sleepy woman in her hands that she took from the fallen temple, and is gazing at it.

Rollo has great dark circles under his eyes, as if he has been punched, many times. ‘I liked Paris,’ he says and then he says some other words, which sound Frankish. ‘J’aime Paris.’

Athelstan looks very tired, too. His hair needs tying back properly. ‘Oui, moi aussi,’ he says.

‘I was a king in Paris,’ says Rollo, before turning over the side of the boat and being sick.

Athelstan runs his fingers over his lips. ‘Moi aussi,’ he says.

Ragnar glares at them both, turns his back on Paris, and stares at the sea. He cannot wait to be home.

**Author's Note:**

> Lagertha was in the Louvre. She checked out Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. And stole the latter. 
> 
> Other tourist traps to spot were Nôtre Dame, Montmartre, the Sacre-Coeur and the Moulin Rouge. Floki was all into the Metro and Rollo climbed the Tour d'Eiffel. Ragnar found Athelstan gobbling snails on the Left Bank – I used the Café de Flore as my model, the café where Simone de Beauvoir and Picasso used to hang out! 
> 
> Rue Oberkampf, at least when I was there, was hipster central.
> 
> The ladies were enjoying yummy macarons.
> 
> People really do get the Eiffel Tower tattooed on themselves. [LOOK](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/fc/45/d8/fc45d8004c29d0372d0783df69885f04.jpg).
> 
> Rollo quoted from the Hávamál, which are purported to be Odin’s words. I used Olive Bray’s translation.
> 
> I was slightly influenced by Ali Smith’s amazing and prize-winning recent novel, ‘How To Be Both’, in which a 16th-century painter observes a 21st-century girl, for the phone stuff! She calls them 'votives.'


End file.
